Stephanie Musat / The Jersey JournalTwo members of the G-Tech team from Jersey City compete in the First Lego League Qualifying Round at Liberty Science Center.

At the sound of the buzzer, two members of G-Tech stepped away from the table.

Their robot met them at the end of the table.

G-Tech, a seven-person team from Jersey City, competed in the First Lego League Qualifying Round competition at the Liberty Science Center, where the boys took their pre-programmed robot and put it against 12 other teams from throughout New Jersey.

The Liberty Science Center hosted the competition for the fourth year in a row, giving middle schoolers the chance to make a robot with a conscience.

This year's competition required teams to develop a project about food safety, which counts for one-third of their total score. One-third of the score is the robot's performance in a nationally-sanctioned course, and the last third evaluates the team's sportsmanship, said Pearl Hwang from the Livingston Robotics Club, the organization sponsoring the event.

Each team needed at least three people, who buy a kit that allows the participants to build their own course and program their own robot to perform tasks in the course.

In line with this year's theme, the robots had to move food from the farm to the table, while tackling environmental issues, including bacteria and pollution.

"We don't want just static science exhibits," said Liberty Science Center CEO Paul Hoffman. "This gives the kids to interact with the technology and make a research project that is significant in the world."

The Jersey City team, made up of Omar Saleh, Youssef Elsheonawy, Aladdin Dahhan, Ryaane Fadel, Ady Bendahad, Mohamed Moussa and El-Braa, worked for three weeks on their robot, testing it in the course to pick up the food and move out pollution.

The team said the most important part was to move the truck from the course because it can interrupt the other tasks the robot has to do.

During the competition, each team had two and half minutes to accomplish as many tasks as possible on the course, which includes picking up fish and releasing bacteria - all made of legos.

Judges evaluated the teams on the effectiveness of the robot, along with how many tasks they accomplished.

The team that won this competition moves up in the rankings and has a shot at moving to the national and international competition, that features 50 teams from around the world.